


Die Hard 4.5 :  I'll Be Hard for Christmas

by Aja



Category: Live Free or Die Hard
Genre: American Politics, Humor, M/M, Nerdiness, Original Character(s), Parody, Politics, Post-Canon, RPF, Washington D.C., Yuletide, Yuletide 2008, recipient:tosca, surprise RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:28:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Subcommittee bingo, flashbulb gauntlets, and gay sex scandals - oh, there's no place like Capitol Hill for the holidays!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Die Hard 4.5 :  I'll Be Hard for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tosca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca/gifts).



> Thanks and love to Everysecondtues for the desperately last-minute beta. Thanks to Yuletide and to Elyn and Shalott for being amazing, and to Tosca for writing awesome SGA fic, and making an awesome request.

"Technology can't beat frozen pizza." - Die Hard 2

  


The press quickly started calling the fire sale 747, as if those numbers hadn't already been bitter enough. Everyone compared 747 to 9-11, even though there was no overt similarity apart from the fact that it was yet another act of terrorism the U.S. government had known about in advance but done nothing to prevent. No one had the associations John carried; no one remembered or cared about a failed airport takeover from nearly twenty years ago. Back then they hadn't had the prescience to assign catchy little nicknames to their major acts of terrorism. 9-11. 747. Or maybe they only did that for the ones the feds couldn't write off as a "successfully thwarted hostage situation." Never mind all the people who'd had to die - all the people he'd had to kill - so the government could act like it had been no big deal. Every fucking time.

But not this time. Not in "a post-9/11 world," whatever the hell that meant. Not in the days of the "new media," whatever the hell that was.

It was like being in the eye of a fucking hurricane. He was pretty calm about the whole thing, and why shouldn't he be? He'd done the terrorism/apocalyptic nightmare thing years before September 11th. And he'd been a New York City cop every day since. He just couldn't figure why people expected him to get excited now. Was there a political scandal? He had no idea. Should there be an investigation into the negligence of the federal government? Why ask him? - he was just a cop. Why was the FBI not more alarmed by Matthew Ferrell's extensive criminal activity before the fire sale?

Well, okay, for some of them he still had some passionate responses.

John had done the fifteen minutes thing. A few times, even. The last time he'd been interviewed, back at the end of the 90's, he'd been told he was "a cult figure." John didn't know what that meant. Zeus had told him it meant he was famous on the internet. Zeus's kids seemed to get a kick out of that. For a while there he'd hoped his own kids would, too. During the few years when Holly had stopped taking his phone calls (the second time), it had been a hollow comfort to remind himself that supposedly, in some other universe called the world wide web, he was a hero.

He'd been on all the celebrity talk show junkets twenty years ago. This time around it was different. This time around, the only thing he wanted more than to hide was to forget what a shallow son of a bitch he'd been back in his thirties, mugging for Barbara fucking Walters and thinking it would help him hold his life together.

Hadn't worked. He'd always meant to get together a new plan, one besides "be in wrong place on wrong day at wrong time, save everyone, go on tv, impress ex-family." He'd just never gotten around to it. At least Plan A always worked for a while; but the overhead was a real bitch.

This time around, he had no chance at forming a plan at all. The media was everywhere, all over him. They camped out on his lawn, followed him to work, swarmed around his precinct headquarters, interviewing anyone and everyone who tried to come through the front door. They were all kinds - pushy, polite, rough, easy, shining so many lights in his face he felt like he was in fucking Guantanamo.

"I can't do my job with those fuckers hanging all over me," he complained to Walter. "You can't, no one can."

"You're unbelievable, McClane," was the response. "You take out half the city with a tractor trailer and then complain when you draw a little attention."

"But this is crazy! At least back in LA all they wanted was an interview, now it's - "

"The 24-hour news cycle," Walter snapped back. "Deal with it. You're the senior detective, use your brain and ignore 'em till they go away."

So he ignored the media while he worked overtime on the reconstruction, the tedious, eternal job of putting the city that never slept back to rest. He threw himself into his job, hoping that if they just saw a tired cop going through the routine, they'd get bored. Instead they just seemed energized - as if they were hovering around waiting for him to snap.

But John wasn't going to snap. He was too old for that shit. He'd grown up or grown tired along the way. Maybe both.

So the press, since they couldn't get him to talk, started talking for him. Some other guy with his face, some guy known as John McClane, or maybe just Joe Cop, became a part of the election circuit - a symbol of the average working man just doing his job, the literal working class hero. John saw himself in People magazine again, saw his name listed on the ballot for the Time 100. He stopped listening to talk radio and switched to NPR, where he was less likely to hear his name brought up and thrown about as some sort of social icon.

It was total bullshit.

At least this time they left Holly and Jack alone. They left Lucy alone at first, too. But then she started officially dating the kid (they'd forgotten to ask John. It was okay, though, he was cool with it. Mostly.) and the press went crazy. Like they were some celebrity couple. John had refused to give any interviews, but the kid - the press was in love with him. He was young, cute, dazzled by the attention, willing to stop and have conversations with reporters, and naive enough to go on tv looking hurt and confused later when he was misquoted in every major paper. They still occasionally ran footage of John ducking his ugly bald head and swearing all the way to his car in the mornings. But Matt's face was everywhere.

While Lucy and Matt were dating ("really, we're not even - it's more like hanging out," she protested. "He's like, half a decade older than me, dad,") camera crews followed her around Rutgers like she was that Britney Hilton chick. She wound up changing her class schedule to throw them off. When that didn't work she'd give them the bird. She even punched one reporter in the face. "You got that from your mother," John told her. "Funny," she answered. "She said I got that from you."

Holly got Jack together for a trip out to New York to visit John and Lucy. "Bring the kid, too," John told her when they made dinner reservations. Matt showed up looking scruffy but relieved to see that John had no real intention of kicking his ass for dating his daughter. ("Hanging out," he insisted.) Holly always put them in these ridiculous high-priced restaurants where John couldn't pronounce anything on the menu. He put up with it, though, despite the fact that they were hawked by photojournalists going into and out of the restaurant, because it was fun to watch his daughter flip them off while her date waved apologetically behind her back. The best part of dinner was when he and Matt got into a heated agreement about how the government was trying to screw everybody over. "And don't get me started on Wall Street," Matt added around his fork. (He'd looked at the menu, glanced over all the Italian crap, and said, "hey, can I just get mac & cheese?")

"Actually, I'm studying economics," Jack inserted.

John gave the kid a 'what can you do' look. Matt grinned back at him, or at least he did until he realized that he was the only one.

Not too long after that, Lucy and the kid stopped "hanging out," and she gradually remembered why she'd wanted to be Lucy Gennero. Things didn't quite go back the way they were, but there were days when John almost wished they had.

"You're too much alike," Holly told him over the phone. "You're both far too stubborn."

"I'm too stubborn? You didn't talk to me for a _year_ \- "

"John, please, ancient history should stay ancient history - " but he could hear the smile in her voice, as though the memory of being separated from her ex-husband for a year had become an amusing foible to joke about at dinner parties. "You know, if you're having trouble getting Lucy to answer her phone, why not send her an email? Log on sometime and read her website. Get to know your own daughter."

"Over a fucking computer monitor? Holly, there's a real world out there I could be sharing _with my family_ -"

"Oh, please, John, spare me," Holly cut in, and the dry exhaustion that surfaced in her voice was still so familiar and stinging it shut him up at once. "Look outside your window. Go on. Tell me what you see."

John swore under his breath, stuck the phone against his ear, and shoved apart one of the blinds in his living room.

"It's snowing on 74th Street, there's a girl taking her laundry to the cleaners, there's a taxi driver who's off-duty and taking a smoking break, there's a bunch of kids hanging out on the corner, and there's a guy leaning on a windowsill to talk to his girlfriend inside the apartment across the street."

"And all that's happening out there, and you're in there, in that same apartment, just like always."

John barely kept from snapping that being too disconnected had never been his problem. "What's your point, Holly?"

"The point? The point, John? How are you supposed to share your life with your daughter if you don't have a life to share?"

John bit the hollow of his cheek and forced himself to stare at the girl on her way to the cleaner's - cute, red hair like Holly's - until she made it all the way down the steps and inside and he'd lost the urge to say all the things he wanted.

"My family's lives are a part of mine, Holly," he said instead. "That's how it's supposed to work."

"What was that?" He started to repeat himself, but her connection had gone choppy. "I'm in the tunnel and you're cutting out. Listen, I'll call you -- "

And that, John figured, was life in the fucking 21st century.

  


The fallout from the fire sale went all the way up the chain of command - skipped right around Bowman and went straight to the top of the FBI, Homeland Security, DOD, and the NSA; Rumsfeld couldn't resign twice, but the guy after him did. As far as John was concerned, they still hadn't gone high enough.

The Presidency had been in chaos for a while, everybody knew that, but in the days after the fire sale it had seemed to gain a renewed strength, or so the press tried to tell John and the rest of America. The President didn't bother with photo ops at the crime scenes this time - just holed up in the White House making speech after speech about how this latest incident of international terrorism only demonstrated the country's need to establish domestic control over Iraq so that it could "fortify its strength at home and abroad."

John had never been one of those guys who talked back to the tv, but -- "Bullshit it was international, you lying sack of shit."

The media contradicted the President here and there, but half-heartedly and flimsily. Mostly they were too preoccupied with watching the terror alert change color, and asking each other if there was really anything the country could do to prevent acts of terrorism. The Congress called for a bunch of hearings and tried to pass a couple of resolutions but it all ended in yelling and not much else. Meanwhile Bush called for a reinstatement of the more restrictive terms of the PATRIOT Act, and got them. The President's approval ratings started to push unsteadily higher. The crop of presidential candidates all stopped talking about change and went back to talking about terrorism, talking til John's throat hurt by proxy.

Newsweek ran an article that profiled Thomas Gabriel under the PATRIOT Acts I and II and found that he came up completely clean, but instead of sending the message that the legal bullshit was useless, the profile just sent the press into another wave of hand-wringing: was there nothing that America could do to ward off terrorism?

Nothing. Right.

Everything had changed since 9-11, but as far as John could tell, it had all been about making it harder for guys like him to stick it to guys like Gabriel, the guys who needed it. More red tape, more bureaucracy, more bureaucrats. New York City had been the best place to be a cop in the world, as far as John was concerned, but in the years since he had gradually gotten less sure. After 747, all he really knew was that at least it still beat out D.C. for bullshit.

But not by much.

His cases these days mostly dealt with investigating dead-end leads on suspected terrorists. He missed the days of scoping out drug rings. In recent years it was all about people spying on their neighbors, and now the list of neighbors they spied on was expanding rapidly to include slacker hackers and kids who knew too much about computers. Even though 99% of it was assholery, every call all had to be followed up, written up, profiled, turned over to the feds. When he wasn't babysitting people's fears - he kept remembering the kid's rant from that morning, right before it had all gone pear-shaped - he was dodging calls from DHS wanting to schedule him for time in Washington for some bullshit congressional hearing on the fire sale. Like the government had nothing better to do than to ask for his opinion.

Months went by and the city got worse, the country got worse, his job got worse. The media finally started to leave him alone, but the government didn't, and eventually Walter slammed down the phone in his office and screamed, "Enough! Enough! This is total bullshit. McClane, you're in D.C. for the week. You leave tomorrow. This is bullshit!"

  


So a week before Christmas, John got on a plane and flew to D.C.

  


D.C. any time of year was a cesspool. In mid-December it was even uglier. Touching down in Dulles still brought back too many memories, and John's mood as he was escorted through security ("What, you're not even gonna make me take my shoes off?" "You've been cleared, sir") was about as bright as the sky over Virginia.

The feds had scheduled him for nearly thirty hours of interviews. Apparently Congress had chosen not to recess until just before Christmas in order to sit around all day conducting these hearings. There were House subcommittee hearings and committee hearings and house hearings, and then senate subcommittee hearings and committee hearings and senate hearings, and then joint hearings between the house and the senate. He wasn't going to be present at every one of them, but it sure as hell felt like it. His tour guide was an aide named Amit, a scrawny, overworked kid who constantly carried a legal pad that was bigger than he was. Amit was responsible for "briefing" him, which basically meant escorting him to his hotel room and checking out the pay-per-view schedule.

"Just so you know, it can get pretty political in there," Amit told him.

"No, really? In Washington?"

Amit shook his head and tossed him a soda from the food bar. "I'm just saying. Also it's open to the public so you want to watch your language." John snorted. "Hey, man, I had to say it, I've seen your press."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"You might be asked to present a statement to the joint hearing," Amit said, not quite meeting his eyes. "But you'll be given plenty of advanced notice, don't worry."

"Advanced notice. Your bosses didn't even give me time to buy a new toothbrush before they flew me out here."

Amit rubbed the back of his head and said, "Please. Can you even take a toothbrush on an airplane anymore?"

The next day was Sunday, and John wasn't scheduled to appear before the first House subcommittee - the Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response - until Monday afternoon. So he did what he figured everybody who found themselves with a totally free day in the nation's capitol would do: stay in the hotel room and watch tv.

It was some kinda universal law that on any given day off, Spike would be running a James Bond marathon. So he ate room service and watched that for a while until he got to _Moonraker_ and realized it was nearly nine and he hadn't been outside his hotel room all day. Even this he wouldn't have minded, except that taken in bulk the movies reminded him of too many failed heists, too many failed thugs and their wasted henchmen. The feeling nagged at him until it made him restless.

John didn't let himself feel guilty very often - he'd given too much, lost too much, and worked too hard all his life, to see guilt as anything more than just another form of self-pity. Survivor's guilt, though - sometimes that got to him. Especially around September, especially around Christmas. Even just surviving past fifty made him the luckiest sonofabitch he knew; but to survive past fifty as a recovering alcoholic, chainsmoking New York cop - luck was veering towards chutzpah. He either owed somebody up there a hell of a favor, or one of these days, he was going to start paying a hell of an interest rate.

Still - stuck in a D.C. hotel through the holidays playing politics, spending Christmas alone - it wasn't unusual for him, but it didn't make it suck less either.

He shook it off and switched off the tv right as Jaws was falling in love, then stood staring at the hotel room for another moment. Finally, for lack of anything better to do, he headed towards the elevators, and as he rounded the corner, Matt Farrell rounded it from the opposite direction.

Kid hadn't changed - except he had. His hair was cut shorter, but it still hung loose over his forehead, thick and scruffy, as if he'd wanted to continue to look younger than he was. The days of no shaving had long gone; except for the goatee, the kid's face was as smooth as a baby's ass. He was wearing a button-up, too, and jeans that actually looked like they'd been washed. He still had the tell-tale circles under his eyes, though, and that was the part that drew the chuckle from John as he looked the kid over. It was the kid's version of chaos - the look that said 'I'm a serious adult, _really_ ' and the behavior that said he didn't really know what the hell he was. He was classic, all right. You could take away the slept-in clothes and the energy drinks and drag it out into the sunshine, but in the end, even with a jacket and a tie, it would find its way back to the computer for those yummy all-nighters.

He'd pulled up short in the hallway and now stood fidgeting just a way off, like he didn't know where it was safe to put his hands. "Oh, man," he said. "Hey. I was wondering if you'd be - if they'd make you do this too."

John gave him a grin - probably looked more like a wince - and cuffed him on the shoulder. "They put you up in this shithole?"

"This is - dude, this is the Capitol Hilton," Matt said, his voice pitching an octave or so higher. "You gotta - did they give you a suite? My hotel room is bigger than my mom's _house._ "

John shook his head. Yeah. Kid was easily dazzled. "Government dickwads, all they know how to do is overspend and underfund. Put you up in a hotel like this to make up for throwing you out of your life for six weeks just so they can put you through some bullshit congressional interviews."

Matt was grinning back at him, and nodding along - "Yeah, seriously, and what're you gonna do, like, tell them _no_? It's the U.S. government, for god's sakes, they know they've got you by the balls so you _have_ to play their game or else you-" some handwaving - "wind up playing domestic terrorist with Thomas Gabriel. Jesus. Either way you end up playing somebody's game."

He cut off then and looked unsteadily at the floor. John knew that look, knew he was thinking about his part in this last game and what it had led to. John hadn't followed up or anything, but the media had made sure he knew Matt Farrell was a dream hire; that after 747 he'd been courted by every government agency, Wall Street firm, defense contractor, and privately funded science operation in America. Everybody wanted to work with this kid. Fox had broken a story about the CIA having a file on him since he was eleven, claimed they'd tried to recruit him out of high school. John had tried to imagine the kid working for the feds. Looking at him now, he tried to imagine it all over again and it was even harder.

Matt hadn't taken any of the jobs, though. John figured he must have spent the last six months living off paint fumes and interview fees. He'd stayed low-key about it - Larry King had gotten him to admit that he wanted "a job where I know I'm not going to be contributing to the same power dynamics that allowed 747 to happen." The press had run that clip for days and days, reprinted it on every piece of newspaper in the country. Always the same shot - the zoom-in on the kid's eyes, wide and real.

John knew that because for days and days, he'd stopped what he was doing, to watch that clip whenever it ran. Every time.

He was suddenly struck all over again by how similar they were - same 'no bullshit' attitude wrapped around a whole fucking sackload of authority issues, same guilt, same conscience - overcompensating for all those other guys out there who just didn't give a fuck - and they were pretty much the same guy, different decade.

"Hey," John said. "So what's with you and my daughter, anyway?"

Matt started and gave him a look of pure fear for a moment. "Oh, we didn't - we just got busy, stuff happened, you know how it goes." When he got silence in response, he started the babbling, and John took a moment to enjoy the sound of his voice just traveling up the scale from one octave to the next. "I didn't do anything, nothing happened, we weren't ever even really dating, anyway, it was mostly just hanging out, I swear - "

John took pity on him. "Kid. Relax, I was baiting you." His hand was still on Matt's shoulder, so he squeezed it. The kid tensed right up and then unclenched.

"Oh. Oh. Right. Baiting me." Matt gulped in air.

"What's your room number?"

"Huh? Oh, uh - 635, you?"

John dropped his hands and shook his head. "What?" said Matt. There was that nervous giggle John remembered. John held out his room key. 636. Matt's giggle turned into a bark of shrill laughter. "Jesus." He tilted his head and leaned it against John's shoulder for a moment. "They put us right next to each other. That's fucking genius."

John stood for a moment, feeling the vibration of Matt's laughter against him. "Well, what can you do? Five days of this bullshit and we're done and we can go back to our lives."

Matt pulled away then. "Yeah? What lives?"

John knew Matt wasn't kidding, so he made a point of laughing.

Then he clapped him on the shoulder and they went back to his room and ordered pizza, just in time for _Octopussy_.

They made congressional hearing bingo cards on the back of the pizza cartons. Committees scored double points, there was a Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security in each corner, and the free space was for the Joint Hearing, scheduled for the last two days before Congress was set to recess.

"Why don't you have as many as me?" Matt complained, studying his schedule for the week. He'd scribbled all over it with a green sharpie. "I have, like, three committees Wednesday. They're all related to electronic security. Here's one - Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives."

John looked at his. "I got one with the, uh, the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment."

"Really? Tuesday? Me too. Maybe they'll interview us together, save some time." John chuckled. "What?" Matt pushed his fringe out of his eyes.

"I don't know, kid, they might not want to ask you the same questions they'll ask me."

"What, you're saying because of my record? You being a hero and me being a criminal?"

John shook his head. "Nevermind."

"No, what." Matt drew his knees crosslegged beneath him and peered up at John. "I mean, we both went through the same fire sale, right?"

"Yeah, kid, but these are politicians. They know how to trip you up."

"Trip _me_ up? What, you think they'll try to make me hand them - what, like, political statements?"

John grabbed another piece of pizza. "I'm just saying," he said around a mouthful of pepperoni. "I've seen your interviews. You feed them sound bytes without even thinking about the words coming out of your mouth. It's one thing to do it on Good Morning fucking America, but you gotta be careful in this town or they'll use you."

Matt started, "But I'm not really - wait, you watched my interviews?"

John half-grinned. "I was holed up in my apartment hiding from the press, kid. I gave up cable a while ago. It was either you or Night Court reruns."

Matt stared at him a moment longer, his face searching for something in John's, before he laughed and looked away. John slid over and nudged him in the elbow. "Hey. Check it out. I got the Subcommittee on Transportation Safety and Infrastructure Protection on Wednesday, and the Committee for Infrastructure and Transportation Safety on Thursday."

"Haha, really?" Matt leaned over to look. For a moment his arm rested against John's, and the contact was a sudden, sharp reminder of how long it had been since he'd been touched by anyone who wasn't trying to shoot him.

He sat back. "You know, kid, you got all those meetings tomorrow, don't you think you better get some rest first?"

Matt shook his head, "Oh, no, I'm fine - " and then immediately yawned. It turned into a laugh.

John smiled at him and bumped his elbow. "It's okay, you can go get your beauty sleep. Maybe if we blow 'em away tomorrow they'll call off the rest of the week."

Matt made a face. "Yeah, right. It's gonna be like the circus."

"So we'll bring back some peanuts."

Matt slid off the bed and stood for a moment, uncertainly. "Hey, man, you wanna - " John waited. " - Grab some breakfast in the morning?"

John couldn't resist. "I thought your type didn't actually eat regular meals."

The kid shook his head. "No, see, it's the low blood sugar, I have to -" he caught up, threw his hands up. "Oh. Right. The baiting thing again."

John nodded. "Sure, kid. I plan to sleep til at least three, though, hope that doesn't mess up your schedule."

"Right, see you at 7:30."

"Fuck you, too."

The kid answered with the high-pitched giggle John was coming to know well, and left.

Morning somehow found John up and fully dressed when the knock came softly from the adjoining room, and when Matt stuck his head around the door, wiry and sleepy-eyed, John had the startling experience of realizing he was glad to see him.

Amit met them in the lobby. "Excellent," he greeted them. "Your being together is probably a security risk."

"You can't stop our love," Matt said, and clutched John's arm.

"Sure, fine, I'll brief the team," said Amit.

  


> Monday, Dec. 17: HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, INFORMATION SHARING, AND TERRORISM RISK ASSESSMENT
> 
> Question: After the attempted robbery of the Federal Reserve by Simon Gruber and your assistance with that operation you were offered several key strategic positions within the U.S. military, the Secret Service, and the F.B.I. You were also approached by Homeland Security at one point. Why did you turn down these positions?
> 
> Real Answer: I'd sooner go fuck myself than work for feds.
> 
> Bullshit Answer: I like being a cop.
> 
> Question: That's it?
> 
> Bullshit Answer: Pretty much, yeah.

  


They settled pretty quickly into a flimsy routine: up bright and early, John would attempt to put on a suit jacket for the first time since his high school graduation, Matt would knock on his door for breakfast and then make fun of John's inability to straighten his tie. Amit would occasionally wander into the breakfast room and "brief" them by asking things like 'ooh, is that coffee fresh?' By the time they got to Capitol Hill they'd be almost late, and then they'd sit in meetings for the rest of the day - sometimes together, but most of the time apart, sitting in hour after hour of Congressional hearings where every member of the 110th asked the same things over and over until John was repeating his answers without really hearing the ends of the questions. The media tagged John coming and going, and hovered around Matt like he was Princess fucking Di.

Once they made the mistake of leaving at the same time and could barely get past the wall of reporters that assaulted them. Finally, just as they'd almost made it past the flashbulb gauntlet some idiot reporter threw some question over their heads that made Matt spin around and spit, "No, no fucking way," and they went _crazy_. John swore, turned, ducked a horde of cameras being shoved in his face, and tried to grab Matt's elbow. But Matt wasn't budging.

"...completely groundless, factless accusation put forth by conspiracy theorists," Matt was saying, his face reddening with each word. "And the fact that you're seriously asking the question is a mark of totally irresponsible journalism, so, you know, uh - good job with that."

The reporter he was addressing looked right through him and only yelled, "Mr. McClane, are you letting Mr. Farrell speak for you, or do you have any comment on reports that you have been associated with multi-national terrorist organizations dating from the late 80's into today?"

John stared at the reporter for a moment, letting the look on his face sink in. Then he put his hand on Matt's shoulder. "I'm gonna let Farrell here speak for me on this one. I don't know as many big words as he does. Most of mine are only four letters long."

Then he hauled Matt away, past the screaming follow-up questions and what seemed like endless camera flashes.

In the car Matt exhaled and shook the tension out of his arms. "Man," he said.

"Hey," John told him. "It's okay."

"No, it's really not," Matt snapped. "I mean - not just because it's you, and - and how could they even go that low, man, honestly," he said. "But because that's all this town is good for, taking integrity and pissing on it just cause you got nothing better to do."

"Hey, easy, kid," John said. "You're starting to sound like me."

"Good," Matt said fiercely.

John looked away out the window. "Why haven't you taken any of the job offers yet, kid?" he said after a moment. "You'd be a millionaire by now."

Matt laughed. He still sounded angry, and John wondered if it was really on his behalf. "i just don't wanna do it, man. I don't want anything to do with all that corporate bullshit."

"Pretty risky, though. You wait long enough and they won't come around knocking anymore."

Matt shook his head and looked over at John. "They're still all over you," he said. He gave John a cheeky little grin, and it was John's turn to shake his head.

"Yeah, but they ain't trying to make me rich, kid. You can't keep living on speaker fees or whatever forever."

"Something'll come up," Matt said. "I'd rather have a job where I knew I was -" he waved a hand vaguely at the crowd of journalists behind them, or maybe at Capitol Hill itself - "doing something to change all this than sitting in some cushy desk job making money for nothing." After a moment, he added, "Funny how getting your apartment full of collectible action figures blown up changes your perspective on what you can live without."

"Yeah," said John. "Funny's just the word I was looking for."

  


By the end of the day the kid's quote was being played every five seconds on CNN, and Amit called to warn them not to leave their hotel rooms if they wanted to survive another mob attack by the press. Matt held his cell up for John to hear.

"That's great," John called into it, putting his face up near Matt's. Matt gave him a half-hearted shove away. John shoved back. "Your guys are doing great, I feel really secure right now."

"I'll pass your compliments up the chain of command."

He hung up. Matt looked at John. "So what do you wanna do?"

John shrugged and flipped on the tv.

"...asking the question is a mark of totally irresponsible journalism, so, you know, uh - good job with that."

Matt winced. "Reruns of Night Court it is."

They stayed in and ordered pizza.

  


> Tuesday, Dec. 18: HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION SECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION
> 
> Question: What was the extent of Matthew Farrell's role in assisting Gabriel's capture?
> 
> Real Answer: He saved my daughter's life.
> 
> Bullshit answer: He came up with a working theory about the makeup and the purpose of the technology behind the fire sale. I trusted his intel and he was right.

  


By Tuesday night, John was in the bingo lead by two.

"I love it when the bingo game is a real cliffhangers," Matt said, staring at the back of his pizza box sadly. John cuffed him on the side of his head.

They stayed in and ordered pizza.

"You know, if you order again tomorrow you get your eighth pizza free," said the delivery guy.

"That's really scary, dude," said Matt.

"That's not all," said the delivery guy. He sounded embarrassed. "My girlfriend wants your autograph."

John started to laugh.

"What?" said Matt. "Huh?"

"She's seen you on tv. She thinks you're hot."

"O...kay," said Matt, digging out his pen. "Can I just, like, sign the back of the pizza coupon or something?"

"Sure, man, sure."

"This isn't like - you're not gonna be mad if I..."

"Huh? Oh. Oh, no," the delivery guy answered. "She's right. You're hot."

John was still laughing when he'd gone.

Matt threw the pen at him.

  


> Wednesday, Dec. 19: SENATE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
> 
> Question: If Mr. Farrell had been mistaken about the logistics of Thomas Gabriel's plan, would you still have been successful in shutting down his operation?
> 
> Real Answer: Not a chance in hell.
> 
> Bullshit Answer: We might have figured out how he was using the power gridlines and where his initial base of operations was located, but without Matt's connections and prior work on the project, and especially without his final encryption code, we never would have been able to prevent them from wiping out our financial infrastructure. Even if we had been able to shut them down physically, without Matt it would all be gone.
> 
> Question: So you would call his strategic contribution...?
> 
> Real Answer: The only reason I'm still alive.
> 
> Bullshit Answer: Indispensable.

  


Wednesday morning John's meeting was long and boring and pointless and exhausting. Wednesday afternoon Matt came out of his session tight-lipped and white-faced, and John didn't ask him a thing, just took him back to the hotel and made sure he ate chocolate until he was distracted. (Screw having low blood sugar, the way he ate the kid was probably walking around with scurvy.) The press was massing around them wherever they moved so once they made it back, John figured they'd stay put. They flipped through channels after a while and gradually gave up with some soft action movie in the background.

"My dad used to say you hadn't seen Washington til you'd seen the Lincoln Memorial at night at Christmas," Matt said suddenly, mouth full of Snickers.

"Did he." John tried not to sound skeptical at the first mention of Matt's family he'd ever made, but Matt cut him a sharp look anyway.

"You ever do detective work down here? - Not counting fighting crime on your vacation, I meant."

Kid really did know a lot about him. But then Gabriel had pretty much proven you could find out everything about anybody if you knew where to look. And John guessed Matt knew where to look.

He shrugged instead. "I did a couple of cases down here as a favor to the department. Nothing fancy. Never took me past the Mall at Christmastime, though."

Matt hopped up and started shrugging on his coat. "Let's go. Screw the press. We're close, we can catch a carriage right outside and take the tour."

John stared at him. "What?" Matt said. He fell for that look a lot.

"A carriage," John repeated.

Matt shot him a look of exasperation. "Come on, you can't seriously want to stay cooped up in this hotel room another night. We can drop by Archie's on the way, warm us up with a few beers first."

John eyed him some more. Matt eyed him back. "No, seriously, man, it's only like seven o'clock. You really wanna stay in?"

"You realize how cold it is out there, kid? You wanna go stand around and stare at the lights on Capitol Hill in eight-degree weather?"

Matt rolled his eyes and tossed him his coat. "Dude. I've seen you throw yourself out of a moving car. Seriously, come on, you can borrow my gloves."

He threw John's coat around his shoulders and stood there, looking so stupidly eager about being a real honest-to-god Washington tourist that John found himself shrugging it on.

"Okay, kid, fine, but I'm not getting into no horsedrawn carriage with you."

"No carriages. Got it."

  


At Archie's, the kid's phone rang, and when he saw the number he answered it right at the table. John hated when people did that, but Matt had been ignoring his phone all week - once he'd said it was all people calling to harass him about working for them, and he hadn't said anymore on the subject - and anyway he couldn't really get mad at the look on the kid's face.

"Hey! What's up, Lucy McClane?" Matt said, and he grinned at John. Great, thought John. This wouldn't be awkward at all. The kid was beaming at John like this was a present for both of them, like it hadn't even occurred to him to wonder why John's phone hadn't rung once during the last three days. "How'd finals go?" His voice was different when he talked to Lucy, John realized all at once. It got a little less guarded, a little lighter - and it was odd to think of the kid having been guarded around John, but he knew enough about people to recognize the change: it was the difference between the way you talked when you wanted somebody to like you, and the way you talked when you had no doubt they already did. John was kind of flattered. The kid wanted John to like him, for whatever reason. He wondered how Lucy sounded on the other end. She sure as hell didn't sound like that when she called him.

"What? - Yeah, I'm in D.C. For the, yeah, you know, the hearings," Matt was saying. "You'll never guess who's with me." He glanced up at John, who scratched his head and looked anywhere else. He still saw the shift in Matt's expression a moment later, and even over the din of the pub, he could hear Lucy's voice go tight and defensive. John glanced over at the table opposite them. A guy and a girl were staring at the menu, pointedly looking anywhere but at each other. Oh, yeah. He knew that story.

When he looked back at Matt, he had an odd look on his face, and now it was his turn to duck eye contact. Interesting. "Whatever, McClane," he said, gently, but with a note of firmness there that John had never heard before. "Cut the bullshit and talk to your dad."

And while John was still trying to process Matt actually sounding like an adult, he clapped the phone into John's hand with Lucy still speaking.

"--is why you never slept with me, Farrell. That plus the fact you're totally gagging for cock."

John let the silence stand for a moment before he said, "I'm just gonna pretend like I didn't hear any of that."

Matt mouthed, 'what'd she say?' John gave him a look that made Matt let out a giggle and then cover his mouth with his hand to pretend like he just hadn't. Lucy said, "Dad, seriously," but it didn't sound as sharp as it had in the past.

"Hey, honey." He couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "How were finals?"

She let out a noise of disgust, whether for him or exams or both he couldn't tell. "They're over. Dad, are you guys just like hanging out on Capitol Hill or what?"

"If you mean are we 'hanging out' the way you two hung out - "

"Dad!"

"Hey!" said Matt.

"No, sweetie, we're fine. We're just repeating ourselves all day long, no big deal."

"My friend said she saw you on C-Span."

"People actually watch that?"

"Dad," Lucy said, but there was a laugh in her voice. John's grin got bigger.

"Oh, hey, you're not allowed to ask Matt stuff about me." She raised her voice: "Matt! If he asks, you - "

"Jesus, all right. No third degree. I think the kid's probably been through enough of that lately anyway."

"Yeah, but his interviews are totally hot."

"Yeah, right," John retorted. "Hot."

"What is she saying about me? McClane?"

"Lucy, sweetie, give me a call before you fly home for Christmas."

"Fine, dad."

"I mean it, none of this, looking you up on your - myface or whatever."

Lucy giggled. "I love you, too, dad. I'm glad you're having a good time - now put Matt back on."

"Bye, sweetheart," John said, just as Matt reached across the table and swiped the phone from his hand. The eager look was back on his face, but it wasn't the type of look John associated with boys who had a crush on his daughter.

"What'd you - no, don't tell him that!" Matt said. "Shut up, I could totally blackmail you." He winked at John. "See, he knows already. You're toast. Oh, yeah? You and your dad, either way I'm screwed. What? Oh, no, you did not just go there. That's it, I'm hanging up the phone. Seriously." He flipped it shut. "Jesus. You McClanes."

"We're a saucy bunch," John said dryly.

Matt slid the phone in his pocket again and took a long swig of beer, an abrupt reminder that he was actually old enough to drink. John was having trouble remembering that. He sat in silence for a moment, watching the kid. So Lucy thought the kid was gay, or maybe she was just kidding around. John thought about that for a moment before deciding he didn't really care. It was just nice for once to have somebody to drink a beer with without worrying about making conversation, about sounding good or not screwing up just by talking. It was nice, for once, to have somebody to drink with at all.

The silence was easy between them until Matt's phone rang again. He looked at the caller id and frowned, then rejected it and stuffed it back into his coat.

"Who was it?"

"Some guy out of Chicago. I think he wants to talk to me about a job, he got my number from somebody I used to know on DailyKos. He's been calling off and on for about a month but in the last couple of weeks he's picked it up a lot."

"Well maybe you should answer it."

Matt laughed, a little darkly. "Yeah. Everybody wants to hire me. Like I'm some kind of wunderkind. I know how people thought of me before the fire sale, and I know how people think of me now. It's not me that's changed."

John couldn't agree with him there, so he didn't bother trying.

Matt took another drink and then sat it down with a thunk. "You know what fucking Hostettler asked me today?" He laughed. "It was the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims. What the fuck."

"Did that one make the bingo card?"

"Not mine."

"Tough. Let's have it."

Matt clenched the beer mug so hard John could see the pads of his fingers turning red through the empty glass. "He asked me if I thought the expertise of our top computer security experts would be better put to use identifying potential incoming technological threats, or identifying the activity of potential terrorists like myself."

Just like that John was cold.

" _'Like yourself'_ , he said that. And then I had to justify why I wasn't a terrorist."

John set his own drink down and leaned across the table. "Kid," he said. "He had a point."

Matt's gaze snapped up, his eyes bright and hurt. John shook his head. "He had a point and you know he did. You were a part of it. You've been running from that for months, because it makes you sick."

"But I didn't - "

"Shh. Shut up and let me finish. You know it. Your friend Warlock got off by being smart and knowing when to help out a cop when he asked. You got off because you wanted to help. That's what makes you who you are. Warlock - he's just lucky he happened to be working for the good guys when it mattered."

"Are you saying you think - what, that Warlock's a potential terrorist?"

"I'm saying, kid - " Matt's eyes were fixed on his, and John swigged a drink before he went on, because it was hard to talk under a stare that earnest. "I'm saying not all hackers are real criminals. Most of them aren't. You can break the law without being a criminal, anybody can. But if you want to fix what you broke you gotta accept responsibility for what you did."

Matt stared at him. "You think I don't?"

John looked back at him. "I know you do, kid." He reached out and cuffed Matt lightly against his temple. "But I know you. Those idiots in Congress - they don't. You want to convince them you aren't about to hack into their computers and steal their identities, you gotta show them somebody who used be a threat but who reformed thanks to the grace of God and the justice system. Not somebody who thinks the whole idea that he's a threat is a joke to begin with."

"But it _is_ a joke," Matt muttered. John waited, watching. Matt looked back up at him, held his gaze, and then dropped it again with a laugh.

"Geez, you sound like my dad," he said lightly.

"I'm not your dad, kid," John answered, going for another beer.

Matt's eyes flitted across John's face for a moment. "No," he murmured, "definitely not," and they finished the next round of drinks, and then the next, in silence.

  


"Fucking carriages."

It was freaking _snowing_ on Capitol Hill, and John sat shivering, rubbing his hands together, while ten feet away a few straggling photojournalists crouched taking pictures, and next to him in the carriage, Matt was looking like a - well, a kid at Christmastime.

"Dude! That tree is amazing. Can you stop for a second?"

"Sure, kid," said the driver. "I can stop." She threw a look over her shoulder at John. "What is this guy, nine years old?"

"He was born that way," John answered. Matt didn't hear - he had already climbed out of the carriage to get a better look at the tree. The Mall was lit up like a - well, like a Christmas tree, and it was beautiful, except for the part where he was freezing to death. Matt didn't seem to notice the cold.

The driver chuckled. "You guys sure are handling the press well. You must be used to it by now, though, right?"

John shook his head, and since Matt wasn't listening anyway, just said, "Nah. He's better at it than I am."

"I gotcha," said the driver. "You two must be good friends." There was something in her voice that sent a jolt through John. He'd opened his mouth to protest when the driver added, "Hey, listen, I can't say thank you enough for what you did that day. All the people you two saved, I mean, literally, it could've been millions of us. No way to know for sure."

John waved her off. "No, there's no need, I was just - " just doing his job, just protecting his family, just like always. "I just did what anybody would have done. There's no need. Thank you, though."

Matt was back, clambering into the carriage and sweeping the snow out of his hair. "There are over three thousand ornaments on that tree. How cool is that? Can you imagine having to put them all up and then take them all down? What a crappy job."

Beside the carriage, three people snapped his picture. He sent them a look of disbelief. "Seriously? How are you guys still here? It's like five degrees out here."

"If I don't get a good shot my paycheck will be even lower, sorry," replied the one on the left.

Matt said, "Oh, really? Cause I'll pay you fifty bucks right now to leave us alone, I'm just saying."

In answer every single camera flashed in his face. John knocked his shoulder. "You're shooting at windmills, kid. It's okay, come on."

Matt turned back to John. "I don't think that's how that goes."

"What are you talking about?"

"Uh, shooting at windmills? I think it's actually tilting, the, uh, you know, like jousting - "

John stared at him for so long it really shouldn't have been so funny when Matt blinked and said, "Right. Baiting me. " John would give this one to him - he'd probably lost at least a couple of brain cells due to frostbite.

"See, in a few more years, you'll catch on," he answered, and clapped the kid on the shoulder. "Come on, Prancer. Santa's sleigh's ready to take off."

"Jesus, you're drunk, John," said Matt, and shivered against him, warmth lining John's jacket where they touched.

The driver gave them a wink and their tour for free.

  


The next day the Washington Post printed their picture on the front page, huddled together in the carriage, with the caption, "All the way home they'll be warm."

Matt saw it over breakfast and froze, uncertainty written all over his face, until John picked up on it, saw the photo, and laughedh m. "Relax, kid. It's Washington."

Matt grinned. "There's a gay sex scandal born every minute?"

"Yeah, well, you're not exactly helping," John said, only realizing after it left his mouth how that sounded. "The press loves you," he added.

"They love _you_ ," Matt said. "They love us together even more."

"We gotta stop meeting like this," John said.

"Yeah, okay," Matt said, and stole a piece of toast from John's plate.

  


> Thursday, Dec. 20: HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
> 
> Question: What was your strategy to defeat Thomas Gabriel?
> 
> Real Answer: Chase the fucker down until I caught him and beat the living shit out of him.
> 
> Bullshit Answer: There was no strategy. In a situation like this, it was touch-and-go at every step of the way. What people kept forgetting was that by the end, 747 was also a hostage situation, and in any kind of hostage situation, you lose the ability to accurately predict the outcome based on the factors established going in. Thomas Gabriel had superior technology and a working strategy in place for most of the day. Up to a point heightened physical security and increased manpower would only have increased the number of casulties without decreasing the risks for the hostages involved.

  


"Your presentation to the joint hearing is tomorrow," Amit said at lunch.

"What happened to advanced notice?" Matt asked.

Amit focused on his celery stick. "It's tomorrow. This is today. This is advanced notice," he said.

"How do you present to Congress?" Matt pressed, and John was grateful he was around to ask the dumb questions so John wouldn't have to. "Is there like a form template we can fill in?"

"No, no, you just make a brief speech summarizing the bulk of your remarks to the House and the Senate."

"That's what all the transcripts of the hearings are for."

"And we'll be happy to provide you a copy of the transcripts if you need help remembering what you want to say."

Matt shook his finger. "Seriously, if you ever run for office, you just lost my vote."

"Great. It's a sign, I'll just continue to jockey for a key administrative position where no one has to elect me."

"Oh, so, like president?" Matt quipped. He sat back and smirked at himself. John rolled his eyes.

"Ah, a joke about the 2000 election. In Washington. How refreshing."

"Just ignore this kid," John said. "He likes to read books."

"Dude, I like you a lot better when you don't remind me you're a Bush voter," Matt said, and there was a note of such real bitterness in his voice that John had to correct him.

"Was," he said. " _Was_ a Bush voter, kid."

Matt eyed him. "Is this what you meant by that whole 'dealing with the consequences of your actions' speech?"

"This is just to torture me, this whole wounded patriot act you do, isn't it."

"Come on, I let you give me the accountability speech," Matt said, grinning.

"Well, don't get too excited, kid, I still support the second amendment."

Matt beamed at him.

"Ah, the face of hope in America today," said Amit. "And yet - oh, look, I've lost my appetite."

  


> Thursday, Dec. 20: HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
> 
> Question: Based on your experiences with previous terrorist situations in the past, how large was the threat that 747 constituted to the general American populace?
> 
> Real Answer: You want me to make some kind of bullshit political statement comparing 747 to 9-11? Go screw yourself.
> 
> Bullshit Answer: I don't think the average American citizen would compare losing their life savings because of a computer breach to somebody flying a plane into their office building.
> 
> Question: Really, Det. McClane? You don't think there's a justifiable comparison?  
>  Bullshit Answer: On the surface I wouldn't compare dying of tuberculosis to getting my head hacked off by a chainsaw. But either way you're still bleeding to death.

  


"Oh, uh, hang on," Matt said into his phone. "What time's your flight out tomorrow?" When John ignored him, Matt flicked him on the back of his head. "Dude, what time?"

"Christ, kid, I'd've shot you for that last week. I don't know, 4pm I think?"

"So you can do Larry King? They want us both on."

"Larry King has your cell phone?"

Matt shrugged. "They're saying they'll pre-empt Deepak Chopra."

"I don't know who the fuck that is, kid."

Matt giggled, then put his hand over his mouth and turned back to the phone. "Oh, uh. Yeah. Sorry. He'll be there."

"I'm beginning to think I should have shot you anyway," said John to his back.

"Fine, we'll hug it out," Matt shot back over his shoulder. John smiled, crumpled another wasted piece of paper, and threw it at him. Matt hung up the phone and joined him on the bed.

"Okay, A, you really need to learn to use a computer already, B, do you know how wasteful that is, and C - " he looked at John and laughed. "I can't believe you let me get away with that."

"What, signing me up for prime time tv without asking?"

"No, the head-touching." He tried to do it again. John caught his arm - scrawny, scrawny kid - and shoved him back on the bed, one-handed.

The look Matt gave him before John let go erased any doubts he still about the kid.

So he had kind of a thing for John.

There were worse things that could happen to a guy.

"So I was thinking," Matt said. "We have to appear together tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah."

"So we write a joint statement. Save us both some time."

John raised his eyebrows. "You and me," he repeated.

Matt bristled. "Why, what's wrong with it?"

"You're prepared to state that to fight terrorism we need to spend more money on ground-training our cops and civilian fighters, arming our security forces, and teaching defense tactics to regular civilians."

Matt started. "What? - No."

"Wanna beef up immigration standards and give a thumbs up to warrantless wiretapping?"

"Not a chance in hell."

"Then write your own damn report." John nudged him. "Besides, you're the computer expert. I'm not. Nobody will care what I have to say."

Matt cast him an odd look. "You really think that. You don't know what kind of hero you are."

"You think you're a hero?"

"No way."

"There you go," John said. "You know how it goes. You just do what you have to."

"That's not true," Matt said. "Not with you. You can't -- you can't control how people feel about you." John looked up sharply. Matt may have been blushing. "You're a fucking legend to some of these people," he continued. "There are websites devoted to you."

"Lunatics."

"No, just - " yeah, definitely blushing. "It's not crazy. There's a lot of press out there about you. It's easy to find stuff."

"If you say so, kid." John gave up the half-hearted posturing at writing and shoved the paper onto the floor. Then he lay back on the bed and tucked his hands behind his head. Matt rolled over onto his side.

"No really," he said, looking down at John. "I know all kinds of things about you. Things like you wouldn't even believe."

"Try me."

Matt's breath caught a little. "You sure you want me to?"

Slowly, John nodded.

"You don't get to beat me up," Matt added.

John grinned. It felt lazy, just like the rest of him at the moment. "I won't beat you up," he said. He reached a hand out and chucked Matt in the cleft of his chin, just below his goatee. "Let's hear what you got."

"Okay." Matt took a deep breath. "I know when your wife left you. I know you used to smoke. I know you took up drinking when Holly left and you quit after you nailed Simon Gruber. I watched footage of you jumping out of a fucking helicopter onto the wing of a moving 747. I know - " he swallowed. "I know the start and end dates of all your city cop jobs - NYPD, LA, DC, back to New York. I know when you were suspended. I know what kind of beer you drink. I know what kind of aftershave you use." He swallowed again. His lips were working nervously. Probably didn't even realize it.

John wondered why he wasn't even the slightest bit annoyed at having been stalked, then decided, fuck it, he just didn't care. There were a lot of things he didn't care about when it came to this kid.

"Kid, are you still trying to prove a point or are you just hitting on me?"

He meant it to come out as a half-assed joke, but once the words landed on the air they sounded strange. A little low, a little taut, a little desperate.

Matt's eyes widened. "Is it that obvious?"

A warm, deep wave of affection washed over John. He gave the kid a smile and a half-nod.

"I - I just - god, can you blame me," Matt managed to get out, even though his voice was shaking. "I mean, I know I'd have a chance," - and, _woah_ , hang on. John rolled over and sat up, intending to say something, cut the kid off, but Matt was babbling by now. "I mean, you've only dated like twice since 1995, that's gotta mean at least a little bit of repression." The nervous laugh, even more of a high-pitched giggle than usual. And John didn't know when Matt's laugh had become usual, but before he could figure it out, Matt was murmuring, "So, uh, you're not saying anything, and I, uh - I should - I should. Right."

"You're right, I'm not saying anything," John answered tightly.

"Right, right, because you're, and, and why would you," Matt went on. He wiped his hands on the bedspread, and John finally registered that the rest of him was shaking along with his voice. "I mean, you're not - and that's fine, that's, uh, that's great. That you're not. Uh. I'm just gonna go," and he started to backpedal off the bed and John reached out to him. He intended to clap Matt on the shoulder or haul him back or something but when he moved Matt scrambled back even further, almost like he was afraid, and John had to, he - he _had to_ \- lean forward and catch Matt's chin in his hand.

The touch was rough, an accident - but Matt froze and John froze and everything stopped with Matt shivering and staring on the edge of the bed and John with his big dry hand scraping Matt's cheek, just holding him there.

John McClane was touching another man's face.

After another moment Matt let out a shaky breath - it could have been nervous laughter, but there was no sound behind it. He swallowed once, twice, and John just took in his face, watching his Adam's apple retract, the way his jaw tightened against the base of John's thumb.

"Kid, I'm your dad's age," John started - but he didn't drop his hand. "Maybe older - "

Matt did laugh at this. "You are _not_ my dad," he said, and his voice dropped low, and it hit John like a gunshot.

"You can't stay a kid forever, kid," he murmured, sweeping his thumb up, grazing Matt's temple, running it down the side of his neck. Matt parted his lips and wet them. John watched his mouth move, his tongue, his lips. "You wanna do this, you better know what you're getting into first."

"Jesus," Matt breathed, like his brain had only just caught up. He scooted forward til his knees were bumping against John's calf on the bed. "Have you been listening? I know who you are. Hell, half the internet knows who you are - and I get that, but --" he reached up and placed his own hand over John's, and all of a sudden John's own lips went dry. _Fuck_ , he didn't know what was happening, or how it had happened. Fuck. "-- But I _know_ you," Matt breathed. "I know how you get. Holly couldn't take it, fine, not a lot of people could." John winced, and Matt held on tighter, squeezing John's hand til John was forced to let him just take it already and close their fingers together. "I'm not Holly. I'm not those people."

"Yeah, well - you're a guy," John said shrilly.

Matt's eyes widened, and then he grinned - a cute smartass little grin - and leaned closer. "I sure am," he said. "God, do you - I've been so turned on all week, you have no idea, just - you're not even a _democrat_ , and I -"

John thought, _Christ, this is the stupidest thing you'll ever do, and that includes jumping onto a moving airplane,_ and pulled Matt in and kissed him.

He knew a moment of blind panic, the kind of baseless uncontrollable fear that was deep and automatic. He let it wash over him for a minute, because he knew from long experience that the only way to deal with it was to let it roll over you and cope with it. This was a petty, cheap kind of fear, though. He was ashamed of it, and after a moment the shame overpowered the hesitation. He'd been chased by a branch of the Hudson River and half the natural gas pipelines of the east coast. Please. He could handle a little gay sex.

And then the fear vanished and suddenly all he was aware of was Matt's greedy, hungry, narrow little mouth working against his - the foreign feeling of a moustache brushing against his own lips, the scent of aftershave and cologne lingering around the edges of Matt's mouth. it was... he didn't know what it was, really, other than different. He knew he didn't want to stop, and for now that was enough. His fingers were skating along John's neck and up the side of his face, and after another moment John let his fingers travel further down to graze Matt's chin, to brush the back of his earlobe, to tangle in his hair. Christ, he was so young and smart and sexy and - holy Jesus. John shifted and pulled away before Matt's hard-on could do more to him than it already was.

"Oh," Matt whispered. "Oh, my god." he opened his eyes. "This is okay, you're okay?"

"Yeah," John said. It came out raspy. "I'm okay."

Matt shifted closer, trying for another kiss. John pressed a hand against his chest and Matt immediately stilled where he was, just looking at him, wide-eyed and earnest. God, this kid got to him. John took a deep breath and rubbed his temples. John gave it a moment, then another moment, until he was sure he could say what came next.

"So tell me what you want," he said.

"Anything," Matt said automatically. "I mean, I don't want you to - i don't want to rush you - "

John shook his head and Matt shut up. "No," he said. "I mean. What do you _want to do._ "

Matt sucked in a breath, then another one, and John realized that he was maybe even more afraid of this than John was. He'd always been so good at handling the unexpected that it was easy to take it for granted that he might be taking this in stride like everything else. The idea that he was nervous just made John feel ridiculously protective. He'd always thought that part of him was male chivalry; apparently not.

"Shh," he said, and he leaned in and kissed Matt again. Matt responded just like before, eagerness written all over him. "Tell me what you want," John murmured against his mouth. He was getting used to the sensation of kissing a mouth framed by a moustache. It was nice, a reminder that the mouth he was kissing was Matt's, that it was Matt's tongue scraping against his and Matt's wiry little body pushing into his. "It's okay," he said, issuing another quick kiss, because it really was.

"I want you to hold me down and fuck me," Matt whispered, and all the blood drained out of John at the sound of his voice. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had sounded that way for him - low and needy and desperate.

"Jesus christ, kid," John said, and they were kissing again, and John's hands clutched at Matt's ribs and the kid arched right up into him, hot and scrawny and full of want. John pushed him back onto the bedspread and covered him with his body. Matt moaned and slid his arms around behind John's back, and a moment later he was working John's shirt off over his head and John was biting his way overr Matt's chest, undoing buttons as he went. "God, you gotta bulk up some more," John murmured, drawing his hand over Matt's ribcage.

"Why, we can't all be ironman - "

"No, so I can do you as hard as I want without snapping you in half."

Matt let out a little gulp of air and muttered that he was stronger than he looked. John smiled. "I know you are, kid," he said. "Believe me, I know."

"Just as long as we're on the same page, here," Matt said, and arched up, right into John, and then they _were_ on the same fucking page, and John was pressing him down into the bed, reaching down to thumb open Matt's boxers and stroke him off instead of just throwing him down then and rubbing off against him like a teenager. He pulled it out and slid the rough underside of his palm down it - he'd never held another man's cock before, but he'd seen plenty, and Matt's was beautiful, hard and already leaking, and the idea that he'd made this crazy kid feel like that made sent a jolt of arousal through John he hadn't felt in years.

"You get this hot for all the guys who save your life, kid?" he asked, mouthing the underside of Matt's jaw and stroking him slowly. Matt laughed but it came out as a shaky series of gasps, and he arched up into John's hand.

"I - God, yes, that's - I never get this hot for anyone," Matt gasped. "God, I want to - shit, hang on," and his hands fumbled frantically with John's jeans until he'd freed John's cock and, oh, yeah, this was good. Matt got off one or two hot quick strokes before John switched angles so he could cover more of Matt's body with his own, and after more pants-grappling and tugging, they were thigh to thigh, fully naked down to their socks, and Matt breathed, "God, just do me" in a voice John couldn't have resisted if he'd wanted. He reached one hand behind Matt to pull his body up against him, supporting them both on one arm, and Matt clung to him, fingernails digging painlessly along John's side, and then he spread his legs wider and pushed up into John like he couldn't get enough, and John kissed him and rutted him, hard, until he came, jerking against John, his eyes shut and sweat glistening on his lips, whispering, "fuck, John, jesus, oh, John, yes," and John finally closed his eyes and let himself give in to the sound of Matt's voice, and god help him, it was the best orgasm he'd ever had in his life.

  


"Ah, Washington, city of romance," said Amit when Matt answered John's hotel room door the next morning in his boxers. "Have your report?"

"We're just going to wing it," Matt answered.

"What joyful news," said Amit, and closed the door again.

  


> Friday, Dec. 21: JOINT MEETING OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS AND THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
> 
> Statement (Transcript), Det. John McClane: You asked me to come down here - and you all know how much I love politicians. (Laughter) So you asked me for a statement. Here's my statement.
> 
> ....
> 
> As far as I can tell, the major mistake being made in the assessment of the fire sale is that it assumes that Thomas Gabriel was not a "typical" terrorist. He wasn't a typical terrorist, no. He was a typical robber. He was after the money, everything else was window-dressing. And if you look at him as a typical high-end bank robber, he fits the profile perfectly. If you look at terrorist assaults on this country over the last thirty years, from David Koresh to the Unibomber to Tim McVeigh to Thomas Gabriel, across the board, you've got the profile, right there - white male, European-American, late thirties and forties.
> 
> Making Thomas Gabriel into some kind of super-sophisticated warlord with an army of computer hackers is - it's sugar-coating. He wasn't super-intelligent. Thomas Gabriel was a crook. Computer security was just his version of a crowbar. And when we get away from that, when we turn him and people like him into some kind of apocalyptic monster, we forget that these guys - they're just like us. They're not indestructible. You wanna defeat terrorism, break it down into individual acts by individual people. Bruce Ivins and the anthrax killings - that wasn't some sweeping widespread mass conspiracy, that was one guy with a grudge. Just like Thomas Gabriel. D.C., Christmas 1990, a bunch of guys hijacked Dulles Airport, they weren't successful. September 11th, a bunch of guys hijacked planes, and they were. The D.C. sniper, that was one guy with a rifle. And it took three weeks to catch him. One guy. We say we fight terror, but we're putting time and energy into researching hacker bases, terrorist cells, organized crime, you name it. So you pour millions of dollars into storming caves in Afghanistan, and then a member of your own DOD people goes rogue, and you're where? You're nowhere.
> 
> ....
> 
> You don't need to focus on one group of people, or one country, or one race or religion. You put people on the ground who can be alert, informed, and decisive when the time comes to take action. I'm not saying train a whole work force of commandos. But teach people to do the work they already do more securely. Then it won't matter whether the activity is coming from an alleged terrorist cell or from the former director of the DOD. What you need to fight these people are experts on the ground with weapons training and the knowledge to combat them. You get a couple of Matt Ferrells on your security teams and you won't have any problems with cyberterrorism, I promise. (Laughter)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Statement (Transcript), Matthew Ferrell: Well, first off I'd just like to say that I am not volunteering to work for NSA. (Laughter) And, uh, I don't necessarily agree with Detective McClane that it's that simple to just focus money and training for more agencies across the board and you'll produce a bunch of people who are like him, who can do what he can do. Which is probably a good thing because insurance rates are high enough as it is. (Laughter).
> 
> In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we reexamined our commitment to providing protection for American citizens here in this country and across the world. We found the current administration lacking in leadership and initiative, and we took steps on the national level to remedy the faults. We restructured FEMA, we restructured the NSA, and we restructured Congress. But over the last six months, since Thomas Gabriel's fire sale, it's become far too easy to use terrorism as a byword for remaining stagnant.
> 
> ....
> 
> 747 should not repudiate the lessons of 9-11. The Fire Sale was the act of one man. One man who, even under the strictest application of the Patriot Act, would never have come under suspicion by the federal government, because he was a part of that government. We can't lose sight of that. It was our faulty security, our myopic defense scenarios, our failure to heed the advice of experts, our failure to understand how cyberterrorism works, that created the problem of Thomas Gabriel.
> 
> You've heard the testimony of Director Bowman. You've heard about how the DOD and DHS failed to learn from September 11th: we ignored the advice of a bitter prophet, and he showed us what form our ignorance took. I was an unwitting part of that demonstration, and that is something I will forever regret. But the one thing I took away from that day is that we cannot remain unaccountable for our past sins - not as individuals and not as a country. In the last four years we have been moving away from a position of fear. We cannot let Thomas Gabriel's fire sale reset the clock. We have to keep moving forward, away from the policies of this administration. We cannot live in fear. We have to see the fire sale, in a huge sense, as a giant distraction. We are entering into an election year, maybe the most important election of our lives. We have too many other challenges in front of us - the economy, Iraq, climate change, energy conservation, Guantanamo - to let Thomas Gabriel's point stand. We are able to learn from our past mistakes, and we are able to listen to warning signs. Right now we have a rich opportunity to do both, as long as we don't take away the wrong messages from the fire sale.
> 
> So, what should we take away instead? Three things. Number one, terrorism doesn't come in a neatly wrapped turban. Number two, cyberterrorists are a real threat and we should take them seriously - but not at the expense of reframing our definition of a free internet into that of a giant monitoring system. Even potential internet terrorists, as you so accurately pointed out, Congressman Hostettler, are potential internet security advisors. (Laughter) And number three, (pointing to McClane) that guy right there is one bad*** American hero. (Applause) Thank you.

  


Matt's fingers were pressing against the crown of John's head, warm and insistent, trying to pull him closer, and his tongue was inside John's mouth, and John was right there with him. "Fuck me, come on," he whispered into the kiss, and instead John fucked the kid's mouth with his tongue until they were both panting hard, until they were both trying not to move and the pads of Matt's fingers were tipped in sweat.

"You really sure this is a good idea?" John said, running his mouth over Matt's temple down to his earlobe. "Plane leaves for New York in - Christ, three hours."

"I'm sure," Matt wheedled, arching against him. "God, when we get back - the things I'm gonna do to you..."

John pulled away and looked at him. "Back to New York?"

"Oh, Lucy didn't tell you, I got a new place in Prospect Park a few months ago, it's not too far away from you," Matt began - then he stilled and added, "I mean - I mean, if you don't want to - " and then he broke off and the look on his face finished the thought for him.

"Relax, kid," John said. "You can still blow me when this is all over."

"Will you respect me in the morning?" Matt grinned.

John ran his hand over Matt's stomach, then flipped him firmly over onto his back. "Let's see how you do today, first," he said, and kissed the back of Matt's neck.

"Mmm," was the response. "Deal. Fuck me."

They had to improvise with the scented hotel hand lotion, but Matt's ass was in fine fucking shape, and John took his time running his hands over the smooth curves, the strong lines of his thighs and the jutting bones of his hips, somehow sharp and delicate at once. Matt was easy for him, pliable and pushy and greedy. It was almost too much. "You'd really let me do anything, wouldn't you," he murmured, working his mouth over the base of Matt's spine while he moved his fingers gently inside, getting him slick, getting him ready for more.

"I want you to do anything," Matt said, obviously trying not to buck back against John's fingers, and _jesus_ , that was hot. "God, _please_."

"You better be careful what you wish for, kid," John murmured, but the images were already surfacing - taking the long hours just to play with Matt, keep him on the edge, let him know when it was okay to come and when it wasn't - and - _fuck_. Maybe the kid was right about that repression. He slid another finger inside and got an incoherent noise.

"Are you kidding," Matt breathed, squirming, sliding his hand over John's arm, the only part of him he could really reach at the moment. "I've wanted you for - god, I don't even know how long."

"So you dated my daughter?"

"I told you, we- "

"Right, kid," John said, and gave him an experimental slap on his left cheek, not too hard, just to shut him up.

Matt's whole body jerked, and his cock hardened without even being touched. _God_. John worked his hand over the sting, still fucking him on his fingers as Matt pushed back eagerly into his hands. "Shh," John said, for no real reason at all.

"You were so hot today," Matt blurted all at once, half-confession, half-gasp.

"So were you," John said. "Sexiest thing I've ever seen, kid."

And then, still amazed at how easy this was, how quickly his mind seemed to accept that what he really wanted was to keep having sex with a crazy-haired goatee-sporting commie hacker queer kid half his age, John kissed the top of Matt's head and pushed himself inside, sliding slowly into that long warm body and feeling Matt's muscles rippling, contracting against him. "Breathe," he said, slowly rubbing Matt's back and pushing himself in a little further. Never - it'd never felt anything like this.

"Forgot how," Matt gasped, and slowly John felt him unclench his muscles around him, and John shifted and suddenly he slid all the way home and he was _there_ inside, and Matt was trembling, and after another moment where John really couldn't register anything at all except how fucking amazing he felt, he realized that so was he.

"Matt," he said, just for the sake of hearing it said. "Matt."

"Please," Matt said, his voice barely breaking above a whisper. "John."

"You okay?"

" _Yes,_ " and it was said on such a needy, greedy, spoilt little whine that John laughed, and felt his laughter pass all the way through him and into Matt. Matt hissed and his body tightened, and John gasped and pushed in deeper before he could control the reflex. "Yes, yes, oh, oh, god, yes," said Matt, and that was all the encouragement John needed.

He gripped Matt's bony waist with one hand and pulled him up tighter, til they were flush against each other, back to front, and when he slid back in the second time, Matt pushed himself up on his elbows and shifted, and it was smooth and easy fucking with John's mouth tracing loose patterns agaiinst Matt's back, and Matt's mouth emitting the most addictive noises John had ever heard, and every time he went deeper, harder, longer, Matt met him with a new noise, a gasp or a sigh or a cry, just like a reward, and so he went deeper, and Matt was moaning now, high treble little moans, and he was bucking back against John so eagerly that finally John had to let go and _take him_.

He yanked Matt back onto his knees, lightly pushed his head down, and lifted his ass up, and then he _fucked_ him, like the fucking action hero Matt seemed to think he was, hips snapping, hands digging into Matt's waist, and Matt's gasps turned into something deeper and gutteral, and it was pure, raw fucking, his dick and Matt's tense livewire body, Matt's muscles working to let him in deep, to take him all the way, his thighs flexing and pumping with John's, his hands gripping the bedsheets, and Matt wanted him, Matt the wonder kid thought he was a hero, and Matt -

"Matt, god, Matt," he heard himself saying, and he was coming, spilling deep inside Matt's body, and Matt was almost noiseless now, grinding against the sheet and coming almost the moment John reached down to stroke him, pumping his own climax into Matt's and resting his forehead against the nape of Matt's neck while Matt shook and tremored beneath him, his muscles clenching around John's cock for long, dizzy moments.

They knelt together, John still inside him, reluctant to release him, listening for Matt's breathing and his own to return to normal. He gave a few tentative, slow strokes to Matt's softening cock, and kissed his hair.

Matt let out a muffled, incoherent noise that pretty much spoke for them both. John mouthed the nape of his neck, finally slid out of him, and turned him over. Matt's arms came around John's body, so hard and scarred and graceless compared to Matt's. His hands already knew all the battle scars, some still fresh, some John couldn't even remember getting. John looked down at him, at his permanently mussed hair, gorgeous brown eyes, stupid little moustache, giant heart. Matt. Crazy, stupid, brilliant kid.

"Hey," he said, finally, for lack of anything else to say, "I think I needed that," and Matt's silence dissolved into a peal of exhausted laughter that rippled all the way through John's skin right up until he kissed him.

  


"And so we say goodbye," said Amit cheerfully. He met them in the lobby with only a long-suffering look at the lack of space between them. Matt was warm against John's side. They'd showered together, which meant they wound up dressing hastily and throwing things into suitcases. John's flight left before Matt's, but they were both getting into LaGuardia within half an hour of each other due to delays, so they would do the Larry King thing later and then John would down half a bottle of scotch and try to forget he'd let the kid talk him into going on CNN.

"Wow, thanks for all your help," said Matt sweetly. "You've been great, really, just great."

"Your support means so much," said Amit. "Is that coffee? Where did you get coffee?"

John pointed the way to the complimentary bar. "Enjoy the whole sex scandal thing," was Amit's farewell.

"Planning on it, thanks," Matt shot back, which earned him a parting smirk.

They passed off their luggage and waited for the car. Matt's phone rang. He looked at the caller id for a moment.

"Same guy from before?"

"Yeah," said Matt.

John nudged him. "So answer it. Never know, maybe you won the lottery."

"The Illinois lottery, right," Matt scoffed, but he scooted away and took the call. "Hello? Uh, yeah. Hi, I, uh - I've been at these hearings - right, in Washington."

John tried to listen, but his own phone rang just then. It was Lucy.

"Hey, sweetheart."

"Hey, Dad. I promised I'd call when I left."

"That's right, you did. Impressive."

"Shush, hey, I've got mom on conference, she wants to say hi."

Static, and then Holly's voice. "John," she said. "Are you still in Washington?"

"For a little bit. We're heading out now."

"You and Matt?"

"Yeah. He's a good kid." Lucy snorted. "Hey. Be nice to him, he kept your lonely dad company all week."

"We saw you guys on CNN," Holly said.

"We got bumped up from C-Span, huh?"

"The networks have been giving yesterday's hearing a lot of coverage. They keep replaying the clip of you saying they'd focused all their energy into searching caves in Aghanistan and missed the real target."

"Dad, you did great."

"You really did, honey," Holly said, and John knew the term of endearment was a total accident from the way she hesitated before adding, "We love you and we're proud of you."

"Aww, thanks, honey," he answered, and smiled at the quiet huff in response. Not quite indignant, not quite amused. That was Holly. "Love you, too," he added, and it was all sincere.

"I'll call you when I'm in L.A.," Lucy said.

"What is this now, you're calling me every five minutes. Did Farrell put you up to this?"

Lucy laughed. "Don't kid yourself. He got you on tv and made you look good, so now I have to keep in touch with my celebrity dad."

"It's a Christmas miracle."

"Merry Christmas, dad," said Lucy. "Love you."

When he hung up the phone, he realized the car had come and the driver was waiting patiently for him. He flipped the phone shut and turned for Matt, who was just hanging up.

"Well?"

Matt had an odd look on his face. "It's kinda, well, I mean nothing's confirmed yet, but... the guy, the one out in Chicago - he does algorithms for sports statistics, right. So now he wants to apply the program he developed to polling data, and he needs someone to help him implement the system and get it ready for the election, wants it to go live by spring. His name's Nate. He said he wanted to hire me because we wanted the same things. It sounds..." he looked up. "It actually sounds pretty fun. Oh! And he says I don't have to leave New York."

John grinned. "Then you better take it."

"I think - I think I just might," Matt said, and John had a feeling the smile on his face matched the one on his own.

As the car pulled out of the Hilton, they met the press. John started to roll up the window, but as he did, Matt leaned over and kissed his cheek, and a million lights exploded in John's face.

"Jesus," he said, but he was grinning as the window closed.

"I just thought I'd give Larry something to lead in with tonight," he said.

"What, you mean tearing Congress a new one isn't enough?"

"Hey, you said it yourself. No gay sex scandal, it didn't happen."

"Kid," said John, "I'm gonna kill you by morning."

"Let's see if you make it through the night first," Matt said smugly, and settled against his side.

"Deal," said John, letting his fingers splay against Matt's hair. "We ever figure out who won the bingo game?"

Matt giggled. "I think the terrorists won." He slid his hand under John's, and John smiled all the way up 14th Street, past the Monument lit up like Christmas, and the frost glittering on the Mall like three thousand glass ornaments poised to catch the light.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Jack's bit part as a business major is stolen from Lamardeuse with love.  
> \- God help me, all of those committees are real.


End file.
